All across the country each year, numerous innocent people and businesses fall victim to robberies and burglaries. According to the Federal Bureaus of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports (2010 nationally collected data), a robbery occurs every 1.4 minutes and a burglary occurs every 14.6 seconds. Ironically, a two-year study comparing 2009 and 2010 arrests for violent (includes robbery) and property crimes (includes burglary) showed a decrease. This means criminals are getting smarter and better at what they do, thus making the job for law enforcement more difficult and solvability rates lower.
There are two crimes in particular that store owners, gas station attendants and store clerks alike nationwide fear the most. The first is the armed robbery. Robberies typically involve some type of weapon carried by the suspect, used to instill fear into the store clerk in order to gain their compliance as the suspect robs the store of money and other items. The second crime is burglary and what police commonly call a “smash and grab.” This crime mostly affects those who have a vested interest or ownership of the items inside. Smash and grabs may occur when businesses are closed and the suspect(s) break through a glass door or window to gain entry and steal items inside prior to police arrival.
An example of a smash and grab involves a closed convenience store. Often, limited information of a suspect's description is provided by a store's security camera(s) and/or personnel. Surveillance footage from a camera may show, for example, only a limited description, for example, only that the suspect appears to be a male suspect wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. There may be no witnesses to the crime. Police may have nothing more than 20 seconds of video surveillance and possibly a K9 track, if there is a dog available.
At a smash-and-grab type of crime, physical damage may be done to windows or doors for the suspects to gain entry to the location. At the crime scene, a standard alarm system may have notified the police of a break-in or other triggering of the alarm. However, by the time the police arrive, the suspects may have fled, making identification or arrest difficult. Alternatively, the police may arrive prior to or without any alarm notification and may inform the alarm company that there was a break-in. The alarm company then may place a call back to the convenience store's key holder to confirm “the break.” When the key holder arrives to the scene, the crime may be determined, such as, by way of example only, 30 cartons of cigarettes missing, which could have a value of approximately $2,100.00. Such is not an atypical type of crime. Although a camera system of the alarm system may be in place to provide images and/or video of the crime, the images and/or video may only offer limited descriptors of the suspect(s), especially if the camera system uses lower resolution or quality cameras, thereby making identification difficult. As described above, the footage may only show, for example, a white male wearing blue jeans and a white shirt that arrived in a small four door red vehicle. The footage may not capture the face of the suspect or any other identifying information, such as a license plate number. Further, fingerprints may not be obtainable because the suspect only touched what was stolen, or wore gloves. Moreover, there may be a significant time delay between when the police arrive at a scene and when the suspect left the scene, thereby making capture less likely.
Police may even later find a red vehicle fitting the description from the footage, seemingly “casing” another closed convenience store in a neighboring town. Police can then initiate a motor vehicle stop. The driver may fit the description from the footage, for example, the driver is a white male wearing blue jeans, white shirt and baseball cap. The driver may even give consent for police to search his vehicle. Due to the lapse of time, though, the police may not discover any further evidence linking the driver to the smash-and-grab from the other jurisdiction. The police may take down the driver's information, but because the police have a lack of probable cause to detain the suspect, i.e., there is no positive identification to link the driver/suspect to the scene of the crime, the driver/suspect must be released.
In the event that the alarm company is notified of a break-in before the police, the alarm company may receive the alarm alert and then proceed to call both the key holder and store to notify of the alarm activation. The alarm company may then follow up with a call to police. Police may then dispatch the notification to officers to be sent to the scene of the alarm. This process adds time between when a crime occurs and when law enforcement responds to the crime. Because of this delay, identification and capture of suspects may be more difficult.
In a second example, such as a robbery of a gas station, in which the robber is wearing all black, police may conduct a K9 track. However, even if the police locate a potential suspect fitting the description provided by a gas station attendant, the located suspect may not be wearing all of the clothing that was observed during the crime, such as gloves, a mask, or may not even be carrying the stolen property. The stolen property may have been stashed away, given to an accomplice, or already pawned, sold, and/or used. Further, although the attendant may have seen the suspect when committing the crime, the victim/attendant may not be able to positively identify the suspect because the suspect may have been wearing a mask. When no positive identification is made, the police may only take the suspect's information and release the suspect because there is no probable cause to make an arrest. Accordingly, lack of a positive identification may prevent arrest of a criminal.
In addition, police must follow various rules and laws when conducting their investigations. If not followed, evidence may be suppressed and a case may be thrown out of court, allowing suspects to walk free and be repeat offenders.